Hillary’s “Basket of Deplorables” Speech is the Last Thing We Should Hate Her For

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently came under fire for using a broad brush to describe literally half of her competitor’s supporter base as a “basket of deplorables.” Watch below:

Now, the backlash Hillary is getting for this is quite frankly ridiculous. Mainly because her general position on the Donald Trump crowd has been successfully argued before, but also because Trump himself has said far worse, and far more often. But the main difference is that Trump’s strategy — doing all of his rabble rousing early on to gain his initial support, followed by a period of restraint and presidential rhetoric closer to vote time — is working. Clinton’s strategy — rig the system against her primary competitor, then turn Trump into the boogyman — is not. At least, not as well. Certainly not well enough to merit the kind of blind praise the media throws at her daily.

So the public sees the blatant contrast. Hillary behaves in shady, bizarre, potentially unhealthy, judgmental ways, while the talking heads on television paint a completely contrary picture of her as a person and candidate. Trump acts like an asshole, consistently, and the media reports it straight because they don’t like him anyway. But now, amazingly, Trump ends up gaining the moral high ground, because not only has he nothing to apparently hide, but he can now begin to “evolve” into a more centrist position and allow Hillary’s campaign to hang itself without much help from Trump.

As difficult as it is to admit this, Trump may just be a tactical genius. And for the first time this election season, I am actually starting to worry that the man might just be the next President of the United States.

Having said all of this, perhaps the most frustrating thing is that there is legitimate cause to truly dislike and justifiably criticize Clinton — ranging from her foreign policy dealings to her handling of intel, all of which amounts to her being at worst an intentional obfuscation agent, and at best grossly incompetent as a leader. Her somewhat true, albeit sloppy, criticism of Donald Trump and his supporters is truly the least upsetting thing about her. Yet the fact that it (along with her apparent health issues) is all people can talk about now has dire implications for the political knowledge of the voting public. And regardless of who wins in the next few months, that is the most unsettling news of all.

Micah J. Fleck is a journalist and political writer who has spent the past several years developing his sincere-yet-indecypherable political outlook through independent research. While an enthusiast of both American history and economics, Mr. Fleck typically comes at his topics from a more anthropological perspective. His writings and interviews have been featured in various publications - including The National Review, The Libertarian Republic, The Wall Street Journal, and The College Fix - and he is currently earning a degree in anthropology at Columbia University.
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